By Christine Harper

Jan. 25 (Bloomberg) -- Goldman Sachs Group Inc., the most profitable securities firm in Wall Street history, said it may fire as many as 5 percent of its employees, or 1,500 people, over the next few weeks to weed out underperformers.

``As we do every year, we are reviewing the performance of the bottom 5 percent of our people and some number of them will be leaving the firm,'' said Lucas van Praag, a spokesman for the New York-based company. ``In most years we ask a significant percentage of that 5 percent to leave.''

Goldman earned a record $11.6 billion last year after skirting the subprime collapse that caused historic losses at competitors such as Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch & Co. and Bear Stearns Cos. Banks and brokers have eliminated more than 25,000 jobs in the past six months as they racked up $136 billion of writedowns and credit losses tied to mortgage securities.